Wednesday, August 31, 2011

MRFF to AFA: Let's try again

After a dispute over how the Freedom of Information Act should be applied, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation is taking another run at getting what it wants out of the Air Force Academy.

Weinstein

Last year, the MRFF, run by Mikey Weinstein, sought academy records that had referenced the MRFF or Weinstein. The time period requested went from 2004 until the search was commenced.

When the records were produced last month, Weinstein found the AFA had cut off its search on Nov. 17, 2010 — although the search hadn't gotten underway until sometime in late March 2011.

Anyway, as the academy should know by now, MRFF doesn't give up easily. In fact, all indicators would suggest MRFF doesn't give up, period. So, this week, the MRFF submitted a new request, going much farther than the first.

Here's the request:

The other Weinsteins named in the request are Mikey's sons, daughter, daughter-in-law and wife.

The request no doubt will cause some moans and groans at the academy, although in a statement issued Aug. 8, the academy expressed a commitment to abiding by the law. The FOIA request referenced in the statement was the one from last fall submitted by MRFF:

The Air Force Academy takes it obligations under FOIA veryseriously. USAFA processes nearly 100 FOIA requests per year, and thisFOIA request took a significant period of time to complete because itwas coordinated among numerous offices at the Air Force Academy andresulted in a large volume of information deemed responsive to therequest, which was approximately 2,516 pages of separate and distinctrecords.